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THE TRIUMFHS OF GENERAL EDUCATION AND OUR RESPONSI- 
BILITIES FOR ITS ADVANCEMENT. 



AN ADDRESS 

DELIVERED BEFORE 

THE LITERARY SOCIETIES 

OF 

SAINT JOHN'S COLLEGE, 

30tlx July, 187S, 

BY 

ALEXANDER B. HAGNER. 



ADDRESS 



OF 



Hon. ALEXANDER B. HAGNER, 



DELIVERED BEFORE 



<f fie pito^Kmi attil pfiilmmitfjiaii Roddies 



OF 



SAINT JOHN'S COLLEGE, 



July SOtli, lS-^%2. 



s 



ANNAPOLIS! 
WM. T. IGLEHART, PRINT. 

1872. 



ST. JOHNS COLLEGE, 

Annapolis, Md., Aug-. 1st, 1872V 
Hon. A. B. Hagner: 
Dear Sir: 

We have the honor, on behalf of the Philokalian Society., 
to request, for publication, a copy of the very scholarly ad- 
dress with which you favored us on the 30th of July last. 
We are y'r ob't servants, 

W. H. Harlan, ) 

Henry B. Wirt, V Ex. Com. 

J. 11. WlLMER, S 



ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, 

Annapolis, Md. 
Mr. A. B. Hagner: 

Dear Sir: 

We have the honor, on behalf of the Piiilomathian So- 
ciety, to thank you for your very interesting and appropriate 
address to the Literary Societies of this College, on the 30th 
ultimo, and request a copy for publication. 
Very Respectfully, 

Your obd't servants, 

Tuos. R. Pattox, ') 
Heningham Gordon, > Ex. Com. 
John P, B-riscoe, ) 



Messrs. Harlan, Wirt and Wilmer, 

Committee on behalf of The Philokalian Society, and 
Messrs. Pattox, Gordon and Briscoe, 

Committee on behalf of The Piiilomathian Society of 

Saint John's College. 
Gentlemen: 

With regrets that the address is not more deserving of the 
kind terms in which you have been pleased to refer to it, I 
place it at your disposal. 

Very truly your friend, 

A. B. Hagner,. 



Annapolis, 10th Aug. 1872. 
A. 13. Hagner, Esq. 
Dear Sir: 

We take great pleasure in performing the duty, assigned 
by the Board of Trustees of St. John's College, to request 
for publication a copy of the highly interesting address de- 
livered by you on the 30th ulto., before the Literary Socie- 
ties of the College. 

Very respectfully and truly y'rs, 

Will. H. Tuck, ) 

A. Randall, > Coram. 

N. Brewer, ) 



Gentlemen: 

In compliance with the request of The Visitors and Gov- 
ernors of Saint John's College, I have the honor to transmit 
a copy of the address. 

Please accept my acknowledgments for the agreeable man- 
ner in which you have performed the duty assigned you, and 
believe me to be 

Very respectfully and truly y'rs, 

A. B. Hagner. 
Hon. W. H. Tuck, ) 
Hon. A. Randall, > Committee. 
N. Brewer, Esq., ) 



ADDRESS. 

Gentlemen of the Philomathian and PhiloJcalian Socie- 
ties of Saint John's College: 

I could not well give you a stronger proof of my 
interest in your Societies than my compliance with your 
request; since few things are less in the line of my 
pursuits than the delivery of such an address as your 
invitation deserves. For among a multitude of unfoun- 
ded charges against our profession there is this true one, 
that the Law is a jealous mistress, too exacting to yield 
much time for other pursuits, and especially intolerant 
of excursions into the fields of Literature or Fancy. 
And I am painfully aware how much the intrinsic dif- 
ficulty of the undertaking is increased in my case, for 
the crude remarks that professional and other engage- 
ments have in some sort rendered a necessity with me 
on the present occasion, must contrast most unfavorably 
with the polished orations your invitations have called 
forth in former years. 

I propose this evening to consider whether the diffu- 
sion of general education, as far as it has progressed in 
our day, has realized for the world at large, the benefi- 
cent results predicted by its advocates; and then to in- 
quire what responsibilities attach to us, as recipients of 
its blessings, for its further advancement. 



6 



It has remained for our clay to achieve the only real 
advance the world has ever witnessed towards the uni- 
versal diffusion of knowledge ctmong men. 

The aim of the true scholar of to-day is not alone to 
store his own intellectual garner, insensible to the men- 
tal famine of the multitude that surround him. He no 
longer fears to allow his neighbor to kindle a taper at 
his candle, least it might diminish the brig-fitness of its 
flame; but his effort is to make the blessings of educa- 
tion "as liberal as the air," accessible to all who arc 
willing to claim them. 

The vaunted culture of Egypt, Greece and Rome, 
and of the so-called Revival of Letters in Europe inau- 
gurated by the famous Accademia of Florence, was but 
the partial education of a limited number, whose acquire- 
ments displayed a factitious splendor by contrast with 
the surrounding ignorance, as even the glimmer of the 
glow-worm will make itself seen in Cimmerian darkness. 
We know now how much of their boasted knowledge 
was folly, and how great a part of it they assumed, to 
deceive the ignorant masses around them. The exposure 
at Pompeii of the cunningly devised machinery by which 
the Priest of Isis extracted prophetic utterances from 
the statue of his God, was but the verification of 
the assertions of Lucian and Plutarch long before, that 
the learned of their day did not really believe in the 
worship of the graven images before which they offered 
hecatombs, while they enjoined it as a sacred duty upon 
their followers. 



The arbitrary ruler well knew that his reign could 
only be secure as long as his subjects were greatly his in- 
feriors in intelligence, for none others would be 
content to abandon all concern in the government of 
their country in exchange for the horrid delights of the 
Amphitheatre. 

Though such ages gave birth to brilliant Authors, they 
can no more be called learned, than India could be cal- 
led rich because the Moguls who despoiled the wretched 
ryots gave audience on peacock thrones glistening with 
gems. The self-applauding preservers of learning of the 
Middle Ages were but misers who carefully concealed 
from the general use the coveted food for the mind — 
dreading the loss of their own importance, if knowledge 
should become too common ; for the very foundation of 
the system they erected was the supremacy of the learn- 
ed classes over the ignorant in every relation of life. 

Knowledge and thought are only kept healthful by 
contact and use, as coin is made bright by rubbing 
against coin. What wonder that the solitary student, 
exempt from active competition with other intelligences, 
should stagnate into the dreamer, finding no higher 
theme for his mental powers than the discussion of the 
weighty questions, whether the Almighty could make 
two mountains without an intervening valley, or what 
number of angels could stand upon the point of a needle : 
or that the incipient philosopher should degenerate into 
the alchymist and exorcist, evidencing his league with 
f Satanas to gaping crowds by the trivial experiments of 



8 



the laboratory. Nor is it remarkable that the multitude 
should have looked with jealousy and suspicion upon 
those who thus clothed their learning with mystery and 
prostituted it to such selfish and ignoble uses; or 
should sometimes have taken the Philosophers at their 
word, and punished them as practicers of the occult 
arts they professed. Shakespeare's Jack Cade spoke 
for a large class in his day, when he proclaimed the 
Clerk of Chatham a Conjurer, because he had in his 
pocket a book with red letters in it; and denounced 
Lord Say as an unquestioned traitor, because he could 
speak four Latin words. And it was no further back 
than the reign of Edward the Sixth, that books of 
Astronomy and Geometry were burnt in England as in- 
fected with Magic. 

This discouragement of general education produced its 
evil effect upon the higher classes, to whom knowledge 
remained more accessible. 

The journal of the famous Samuel Pepys presents a 
singular picture of the occupations of the Court of 
Charles the Second and of its estimate of the just uses 
of science, in two letters from Sir Isaac Newton, in reply 
to inquiries addressed to him by command of the King. 
The "Merrie Monarch" had required the great philoso- 
pher to determine, whether the chances of a player were 
o-reater to throw six sixes with six dice, or twelve sixes 
with twelve dice, or three sixes with three dice. The let- 
ters are filled with abstruse calculations by which Sir 
Isaac vindicated his opinion, though they conclude with 



9 



a quiet suggestion that his time might have been more 
usefully employed. The mathematicians of the Philo- 
mafhian Society might entertain a similar opinion, if 
the momentous question were submitted for their solu- 
tion. 

It is evident that King and Courtiers looked upon 
the Philosopher as Macauley informs us the country 
Squires of the day regarded their curates, or as Pharaoh 
and Bclshazzcr esteemed their magicians and interpre- 
ters of dreams. 

A Freshman might be forgiven for suggesting that an 
age of such unbounded levity, would have seemed singu- 
larly unpropitious for the discovery of the laws of Gravity. 

Pepys himself was a scholar of Madeline College, 
Cambridge, was looked upon as a learned man, and 
from an early age held the high post of Clerk of the 
Acts, which at times gave him the virtual control of 
the Naval affairs of the kingdom. In the journal which 
he kept with such uncomplimentary fidelity he records, 
when upwards of thirty years of age, that he had de- 
termined to study the Mathematics, and had according- 
ly commenced the multiplication table under the in- 
struction of a Tutor. He selected the month of July for 
the severe task, and at intervals of ten days he chron- 
icles his progress, and seems firmly resolved to master 
its intricacies. From so promising a beginning, one is 
not surprised to learn that he afterwards became Presi- 
dent of The Royal Society, nineteen years before Sir 
Isaac Newton attained that high distinction. 



10 



When George the First ascended the throne of Eng* 
land, which for fourteen years he had known was to de- 
volve upon him, Mr. Edward Wortley Montagu was the 
only memher of the Ministry who could hold a conver- 
sation with the King, who only spoke German and 
French; and this in the year of Grace 1714, and 
England but twenty-two miles distant from the Con- 
tinent, 

The wisdom and learning of every age are largely due 
to the accumulations it has been able to derive from 
those that have gone before, the stream of knowledge 
widening and deepening with the accession of every 
rivulet of learning. But the difficulty of procuring 
books in former times, practically limited very greatly 
the storing and transmission of learning. Saint Jerome, 
in the fourth century, relates how he beggared himself 
in procuring a copy of the works of Origen; and the 
painfully prepared palimpsests of the Middle Ages at- 
test the costliness and rarity and consequent inaccessi- 
bility, of books, except to the rich. The invention of 
printing, until of recent years, did little more than 
ameliorate the evil, for the character of the books 
printed united with their costliness to limit the number 
of readers to a comparatively small class. 

How strangely this compares with the facilities for 
reading in our clay; with the newspaper in every house, 
and the pleasant volume cheaply accessible to the hum- 
blest classes who now hold the place of those who, a 
few generations back, contented themselves with gazing 



11 



upon the mystical page, as children puzzle over the un- 
intelligible devices on Chinese tea chests. 

In some respects an education confined to a limited 
class is, for the people at large, worse than no education 
at all, inviting to tyranny on the part of the learned, 
who find ready subjects in their intellectual inferiors; 
and they in turn, are brought to associate injustice with 
learning. A nation so constituted contains the inherent 
seeds of jealousy and weakness. The man who should 
build his house upon the sands of the sea, or endeavor 
to poise a pyramid on its apex, would not be more illogi- 
cal than those who profess to wish the -advancement of 
mankind and yet leave the masses in ignorance. 

The rude guides who conduct the traveler through 
the pyramids and catacombs of Egypt and Rome are 
wiser in their generation than the Ptolemies and school- 
men; for they require each of the group, however nu- 
merous it may be, to carry a lighted torch, to diminish 
as far as possible the danger of being lost in hopeless 
gloom by the accidental extinguishment of the lights. 

Thanks to the sagacious policy which in our day has 
sought to increase to its utmost capacity the number of 
those who bear aloft the lights of science — which endea- 
vors to create an intelligent atmosphere to displace the 
Boeotian fogs and gloom of ignorance and suspicion that 
oppressed and discouraged the student of other times; 
surrounding the scholar of to-day with sympathetic 
minds, who are interested in his every advancing step and 
competent to aid and stimulate him by counsel and act 



12 



That our present civilization has advanced to a point 
far excelling all that preceded it in everything that 
ministers to the comfort and happiness of mankind, 
cannot be doubted by any thoughtful mind; nor can it 
be disputed, that our gratitude is due to the Genius of 
Universal Education, the auxiliary of Christianity, for 
all these blessings. 

Hie "Deus iwbis 7ia?c otia fecit ." 

We must make great allowances for the palpable ex- 
aggerations with which the romantic annalists of former 
times adorned their pages. It requires as abundant a 
faith to credit much that we read of the ancient splen- 
dor of the Courts, of the marvels of the Field of the 
Cloth of Gold, as narrated by the elder historians, 
where the rival monarchs moved like descended Gods, 
as to give credence to the amazing adventures of noble 
knights and ladies fair, in their journeyings through 
trackless forest and impenetrable morass — exposed to 
the fury of the elements, the rage of wild beasts and the 
assaults of robbers innumerable, but always emerging 
resplendent with gems and stainless samite, and scatter- 
ing gold on every hand as largesse in an age when 
coined money was especially rare. Much of this glori- 
fication belongs to the age of exaggeration, and is akin 
to the story of Hannibal melting the rocks with vinegar r 
of which he chanced to have so opportune a supply on 
the summit of the Alps — to the tales of "antres vast 
...and hills whose heads touch Heaven;... the An- 
thropophagi, and men whose heads do grow beneath 



13 



their shoulders;" or, in later days, to the narrative of 
our own Father Hennepin, who saw Niagara Falls 
when they were about 1000 feet in height! The sober 
truth would paint these glories in a rather more sombre 
dress. But admitting- the correctness of all these em- 
bellishments, they only show that the selfish few who 
managed to retain for themselves all the learning of the 
age, were equally careful to monopolize its luxuries. 
However brightly jewels flashed in castle and hall, 
on the brow of beauty, Gurth "born thrall of Ccdric of 
.Rotherwood," with the brass collar on his neck, was a 
fair type of the serfs who glowered outside the Castle 
walls they had been forced to build for their own sub- 
jugation. For the collar on the serf's neck was no in- 
vention of Sir Walter Scott. By a statute, passed in the 
1st year of Edward VI., ordering idlers and vagabonds 
to be sold as slaves for two years, and condemning them 
as slaves forever in the event of their escape or disobe- 
dience, it was made lawful for a master to put a ring of 
iron around the neck, arms or legs of the slave, " for 
the more certain knowledge and surety of the keeping 
of him;" "and if any person do take, or help to take 
any such band of iron from any such slave, every per- 
son so doing without the license or assent of his master, 
shall forfeit ten pounds sterling." 

None of the most moderate fortunes at the present 
day would consent to exchange their carpeted dwell- 
ings, replete with the appliances of heat and water and 
light, for the uncomfortable prodigality of the banquet- 



14 



ing halls of Elizabeth, where the courtiers cut the 
meats with their daggers and the ladies tore it with 
forklcss hands, not much more decorously than the dogs 
that fought over the bones and scraps among the rushes 
beneath the table. 

Compare the present facilities of travel with those 
existing at the beginning of the century, when Mr. 
Jefferson would consume his two weeks in a trip from 
Virginia to New York, — a time now sufficient for a 
journey to San Francisco and back. Contrast the two 
months voyage of Columbus, with the nine days passage 
across the Atlantic in steamships excelling in elegance 
and real comfort the purpled galleys of Cleopatra when 
she ascended the Cydnus to meet her Anthony; the 
snail-like motion of the mails of seventy years ago, justi- 
fying the exclamation of Luther Martin the Attorney 
General of Maryland, as preserved in our books of Re- 
ports, that "none but an angel on the wings of the wind 
could give notice in ten days from Philadelpia to Char- 
leston," with the transmission of intelligence through 
the marvellous telegraph, which, lo! almost in an instant 
of time, informs the citizen of California of events in 
Calcutta fourteen hours in advance of their occurrence, 
according to our measure of time ! Think of the wretch- 
ed days when men stood hopeless and helpless to op- 
pose the ravages of the pestilence whenever it appeared, 
like the pale horse and its rider in the Apocalyptic 
vision, desolating palace and hovel alike, until it had 
worn itself out as consuming fires die from want of 



15 



sustenance. Of the tortures inflicted by the surgeon's 
knife and the cautery, where the sufferer writhed under 
unsubdued torments more intense than the wound itself, 
compared with the modern appliances of anaesthetic 
agents which place the patient in the deep sleep like 
that which fell upon Adam, giving aid and opportunity 
for the operator's skill; of the increased duration of 
human life as demonstrated by carefully kept tables of 
mortality ; of the humane efforts of the present genera- 
tion towards the amelioration of the unnecessary 
rigors of prison discipline, extending to the repentant 
criminal some hope for the future and showing him 
something of that Divine Mercy, which with earnest 
prayers we invoke for ourselves; of the conviction, 
slowly forced upon the minds of men, that Insanity is 
not a crime, to be punished with darkness and flagella- 
tions; of the glorious fact that the fires kindled by reli- 
gious persecutions have been forever quenched by the 
tears of the last sufferers from this device of the devil 
to induce men to abhor a Faith that demands human 
sacrifices for its Altars; of the inauguration by the 
two most powerful nations on earth of that plan of 
peaceful Arbitration of international difficulties, which 
substitutes the treaty before the war for the inevitable 
treaty that must be made after the war; thus releasing 
to the pursuits of industry the armed millions of the 
flower of the earth who are now condemned at times 
to lives of enforced idleness, and then to "the battles of 
the warrior" with their "confused sound and garments 



16 



rolled in blood;" and of the numberless blessings of an 
advanced civilization that surround us on every hand, 
and which are the direct result of the diffusion of Gener- 
al Education. 

Nowhere is this wonderful progress so conspicuous 
as in our own country, incomparably the first on earth 
in securing the general welfare of its people ; where the 
last year witnessed the completion of a greater number 
ol miles of railroad than almost any kingdom of the Old 
World contains; where great cities rise with a rapidity 
that seems to realize the fabled growth of the walls 
raised by the music of the demi-god ; towards whose 
hospitable shores so many eager faces are constantly 
turned with such anxious hopes; the only country, ex- 
cept Australia, which presents the remarkable spectacle 
of the continued immigration of vast multitudes with no 
decrease of its inhabitants from emigration. "Nulla 
vestigia retrorsurri" may well be the sorrowful utterance 
of the European ruler who witnesses this unexampled 
exodus of the most enterprising of his people to the 
land of promise. Under such skies, in a country pos- 
sessing a larger extent of fertile land in a body than the 
earth elsewhere contains, with almost every variety of 
production, surrounded by so much that ministers to 
the happiness of man, we may well be devoutly thank- 
ful that our lot has fallen on these latter days, which 
seer and prophet might well have waited for; for never 
has any generation inhabited the earth under such favor- 
ed conditions as do we of the Nineteenth Century. 



17 



1 claim no perfection for our times. The millenium 
is not yet. The fruit of the tree in the Garden was of 
the knowledge of evil as well as good. Cuvier declares 
that science reveals nothing to prove that our pre- 
decessors were races of giants, and the men of to-day, 
cast in the same physical mould, have the same passions 
and moral imperfections, the same taint of mortality, 
that debased the first dwellers upon earth. We would 
cease to be human were it otherwise. And this painful 
consciousness of the faults and vices of our age is not 
more evident than our duty to aid earnestly in reforming 
them. Lamentations over our alleged degeneracy will 
no more cure the evils than the wagoner's prayer to 
Hercules could move his stalled team. Carlyle quotes 
from Rushworth a dialogue between Lord Rea and Sir 
David Ramsay in 1630, in which his Lordship, groaning 
over the evil days ejaculates, "Well, God mend all!" 
"nay, Donald," said the other, "by Heaven, but we 
must help Him to mend it," And w r e, in our day, can 
do no human thing which can be so effectual to amend 
the evils that afflict our times, as to assist in the devel- 
opment of General Education. 

All men since Solomon, have deplored the wickedness 

of their own times and sighed for some supposed age 

of purity that preceded them; but these are only 

fanciful dreams, "cegri wmnia vana" as unreal as those 

of the lunatic in Maud, who fancying himself dead and 

badly buried exclaims — 

"Oh wretehedest age since Time began! 
They cannot even bury a man."' 

People forget that in these clays the newspaper and 
3 



18 



telegraph penetrate to every corner of the earth, and 
expose to publicity the smallest offences. The sins of 
to-day' are' no new inventions. If ill-gotten wealth ex- 
ercises a corrupting influence in our day, the age is hut 
repeating, in a greatly mitigated form, the days when all 
was venal at Rome; when Crassus bought the triumvi- 
rate and the Praetorians publicly sold the Empire; 
when Marlborough was detected in public peculation 
that would have disgraced the meanest foot-boy among 
his camp followers, and a King's brother, when Com- 
mander-in-Chief, a century afterwards, faithfully im- 
itated this shameful part of his predecessor's career; 
and Walpole boasted that he knew the price of every 
man in Parliament, and could make a hundred patriots 
in a night. 

That crime should sometimes go undetected and un- 
punished is neither remarkable nor new, for such has 
been the complaint since the world w r as made, and 
never with less support than now. The most infamous 
judges of modern times who have stained the ermine 
and been punished for their crimes, were but mean imita- 
tors of the illustrious Bacon. But our civilization knows 
no class or condition above or beneath the law, and the 
shameful contrivances by which, in the supposed ages 
of purity, the abandoned criminal was set free to com- 
mit new crimes under the plea of Benefit of Clergy, 
provided he possessed learning enough to read the 1st 
verse of the Miserere, has given way to a system which 
justly holds the learned more culpable than the ignorant. 



19 



Imagine a scene like this in a court of onr day: "The 
"prisoner being found guilty of manslaughter and being 
"asked what he had to say why judgment should not 
"pass against him, prayed ids clergy and that he was 
"and still is a clerk, and offered to read as aclerl\ where- 
"upon his clergy was allowed him, and he was tried by 
"the Ordinary who gave him a Psalm to read, whereof 
"he read the first verse ; and then Sir Samuel Astry 
"asked the Ordinary, "Legit vel nonV\ who answered 
"Legit " — whereupon the executioner burnt him with- 
"out the bar on the brawn of the left hand." Yet this is 
the literal statement of a case in Salkeld's Reports in 
the 8th year of William 3d; and the abominable folly 
remained a part of the law of England until 1827, and 
was never finally obliterated from the Statutes in Mary- 
land until 1809. It is to be hoped that the contri- 
vance at least had the effect to create in the criminal 
an affectionate reverence for the fifty-first psalm for 
the rest of his life, however unmindful he may have 
been of the other parts of the Sacred Volume. 

To those who fear that honesty and patriotism in 
rulers are exploded ideas in our country, it may be 
some melancholy consolation to recall that Washington 
found grave fault during the Revolution with the greed 
of contractors and the "modesty" of some of his sol- 
diers; that his most trusted commander assumed the 
odious name of traitor for money; that his camp during 
the war was frequently disturbed by factions and cabals; 
and that it required all his iron resolution at its close 



20 



to suppress the treasonous plot which sought to defraud 
of their liberty the people who had struggled through 
seven sad years of war against Monarchy, by placing a 
crown on the brows of the Commander-in-Chief; that 
this same incomparable man, who had steadily refused 
all remuneration for his immeasurable services was as- 
sailed by mean natures as a peculator, a miser, a cold- 
blooded imbecile and a tyrant; that almost equally 
shameful abuse was spattered on his successors in office, 
one of the greatest of whom is vilified, for all time, in 
the lampooning verse of a celebrated English poet as 
guilty of shameful practices ; and that all this occurred 
in the so-called "pure days" of the Republic. 

But fortunately all know that such slanders generally 
are but the penalty which vile minds impose upon the 
attainment of hig-h station, and that the detractors are 
generally willing to withdraw them when their object 
no longer excites envy; as the savage enemies- of Juarez, 
the purest man Mexico ever produced, are to-day striv- 
ing to win the popular favor by rivalling his friends 
in lavishing praises upon his name, as if by flattery " to 
soothe the cold, dull ear of death." 

And to those sensitive souls who especially deplore 
the growing irreligion of the age and thus practically 
insist that eighteen centuries of Christianity have made 
the world unchristian and that The Blessed Saviour 
died in vain, the devotion and superior learning of the 
great body of the Ministers of Religion in our day over 
those of all former times, (as admitted by every student 



21 



of history), the unprecedented growth of the Churches ; 
and the air thick with the music of the church-going 
bell from almost every hill top, should surely tend to 
give assurance that He who said "My promise cannot 
fail," will perform it to the uttermost. 

Those who extol the past to the disparagement of 
the present make no adequate allowance for the sof- 
tening effect of time and the enchantment of distance, 
that "robes the mountain in its azure hue." How 
harshly its craggy ravines and broken gorges display 
themselves as we approach its base! "Truth," says 
Lord Bacon "is a naked and open daylight that doth 
not show the masks and mummeries and triumphs of 
the world so stately and daintily as candlelight." 
But it is through "that fierce light which beats upon" 
our times "and blackens every blot" that we are com- 
pelled to scrutinize its failings. 

The poet and historian who would have us believe 
that the Age of Chivalry is gone and that men like their 
heroes grow no more on earth, would not succeed so 
well in making feeble natures dissatisfied with the age 
in which their lot has been cast, if they were half as 
free in admitting the faults of their saints as they are 
in magnifying their virtues. Sir Philip Sidney has 
ever been lauded as a blameless knight, whose gentle- 
ness and magnanimity were his chiefest merits. I 
confess I can see nothing particularly saint-like in 
this letter which his biographer informs us he ad- 
dressed to his Father's Secretary, a poor gentle- 



22 



man, whom he unjustly suspected of a breach of con- 
fidence. 

"Mr. Molincux: Few words are best. My letters to 
" my Father have come to the eyes of some, neither can 
"I condemn any hut you for it. You have played the 
" very knave with me and so I will make you know, if 
"I have good proof of it. But that, for so much as is 
'■''past. For that is to come, I assure you before God, 
*' that if ever I know you do so much as read any letter 
" I write to my Father without his commandment or my 
"consent I will thrust my dagger in you; and trust to 
"it, for I speak it in earnest. In the meantime farewell. 

By me, Philip Sidney." 

The strongest terms we can find in condemnation of 
the fearful vice of intemperance are borrowed from elder 
days when men '•'•lingered long at the ivine cup" and 
"rose up earl// to drink strong drink." Father White's 
" Authentic Narrative of the Voyage of the first settlers 
to Maryland" contains an account of the Christmas festi- 
vities on board The Ark, one of the small vessels, when, 
as he expresses it, "wine having been freely distributed 
in honor of that festival, several drank of it immoderately 
and thirty persons were seized with a fever the next 
morning of whom twelve died." So Christmas was not 
kept more soberly in those pure days than it now is. 
If the similar accident to Noah had been remembered, 
the vessel might have not received the name of The Ark 
at its christening. 

The same class of sclf-dcpreciators extol the me- 



23 



chanical contrivances of the past and its unapproacha- 
ble architecture, as proof of its superiority in those 
respects. But one must have but a limited acquaintance 1 
with the resources of art in our times who can 
doubt that the erection of the Druidical remains at 
Stonehenge and of the pyramids themselves, would be 
but child's play to the workman of our day with the 
steam-engine at command, which to-day does work in 
England equal to the labor of 400,000,000 men. The 
good sense of the present age has preferred to build 
smaller and more appropriate churches, rather than 
erect enormous structures like those noble Cathedrals 
which arose over Europe between the eleventh and 
fourteenth centuries like glorious exhalations of praise 
from the earth, as if in propitiation for all the righteous 
blood that had been shed on the land from the blood of 
righteous Abel. But there are few modern countries 
that could not surpass them, and that too without such 
oppressions as were imposed upon those whose enforced 
labor reared those altars, with sighs that ascended to 
Heaven like the groans of the Sacrifice. The most 
sumptuous and splendid church interior in Europe, 
literally gleaming with precious marbles and rich with 
mosaics and frescoes, is the great modern Basilica of St, 
Paul's-without-the walls at Rome, which was built large- 
ly if not chiefly, by contributions from this country and 
was only consecrated within the last twenty years. 

Upon the people of this generation who are the reci- 
pients of the benefits which the diffusion of learning 



24 



lias heaped upon mankind rests the responsibility for 
its further advancement. It is not enough to feed the 
vestal lamp of science, but it is our duty to increase and 
intensify its light until its cheering beams shall irra- 
diate every dwelling. " To whomsoever much is given, 
from him shall much be required," is the inexorable law 
of our existence which is part of ourselves, and which 
one can no more shake off than he can rid himself of 
his shadow. We can turn no where without finding 
abundant need for our best services, but our present in- 
quiry must be limited to the claims of General Educa- 
tion upon the people of to-day for its further extension 
and development. 

The people of the State have a right to receive fur- 
ther collegiate aid, that their children may be educated 
within the borders of Maryland and need not become 
exiles to become learned — a necessity that would vir- 
tually exclude the poor man's son from all higher edu- 
cation. We should spend our money for education 
among our own people instead of continuing to aid in 
building up other communities with our means. The 
people know that increased facilities for higher educa- 
tion will increase the desire to obtain it, as increased 
facilities of travel fill our conveyances with travelers; 
that an insignificant rate of taxation which they are 
abundantly able and willing to pay, would amply endow 
suitable Colleges within the State; and they feel that 
it is not in keeping with the spirit of progress of Mary- 
land in the past, that she should consent to be excelled 



25 



in this good work by almost every other State in the 
Union. She was a pioneer in past days in the great 
railway system of the country, as in all else that made for 
the public good, and her citizens have ever been busy 
workers in the Centuries of Invention. Her Capital 
City was the first in the Country that was lighted with 
illuminating gas, and it received the first message sent 
across the first magnetic telegraph ever constructed. 

It cannot be that the Student was designedly omitted 
from the group of the Fisherman and the Agriculturist 
on the Great Seal of Maryland, and is entitled to no 
Share in the fervent aspiration of our patron Saint — 
"Crescite et multiplicamini /" 

This responsibility, so far as our own State is con- 
cerned, rests upon its citizens; and first of all upon 
those of this City, which would directly profit by the 
establishment of a great College here, as Oxford and 
Cambridge and Leyclen and Heidelberg, in Europe, and 
Cambridge and Princeton in our country, have been 
built up by their great Universities and Colleges. The 
College of to-day which applies to a Legislature for aid, 
without being able to show a respectable endowment 
from individuals, fails to present the most generally ac- 
cepted practical proof of the probability of success. 
Let Saint John's approach the General Assembly, en- 
dowed with liberal private benefactions, which a judi- 
cious and earnest effort could not foil to secure, and its 
Visitors and Governors need have no anxieties that its 
reasonable requests will be unheeded. " To them who 

4 



20 



have shall be given, and from him who hath not, shall be 
taken even that which he hath," — seems to have been 
construed as especially written for American Colleges. 

There is nothing to discourage in the past history of 
Saint John's. Except in the rarest cases where pre- 
scient governments have understood their needs from the 
beginning and started with liberal endowments, the pro- 
gress of Colleges in our country towards complete suc- 
cess has ever been slow. Before Saint John's was 
chartered Princeton was an old College, lying in a 
densely populated and wealthy country between our two 
greatest commercial cities ; and yet it was the complaint 
there in my day, as it had been for more than a century 
before, that the College had never received a dollar of 
endowment. And the same complaint would probably 
be heard still, had not its present energetic rulers gone 
to work in the right way within the last five years. 
As the result of this effort, the private benefactions 
to Princeton already largely exceed the sum of 
$1,000,000. There is an abundance of wealth in 
Maryland to invest in business pursuits even of the 
most hazardous character, and enough of it would be 
cheerfully applied in the more enduring form of College 
endowments, if the wealthy were properly approached 
and had reasonable guarantees that their contributions 
would be usefully applied. The name of a College en- 
dowment will far outlast that of a hotel or a steamboat, 
which some men seem to rely on as a whimsical mode of 
perpetuating their fame. The renown of William of 



27 



Wyckham has survived the memorials of scores of kings 
who have lived and died since his day, and will endure 
as long as his College at Winchester shall exist. 

Would that the people of Maryland rated the benefits 
of college education as highly as did the inhabitants of 
Bologna, who expressed in the motto of their State 
what they considered its noblest occupation — u Bononiu 
docety It may be an interesting fact, to those who have 
heard the "woman's rights movement" alternately laud- 
ed and blamed as a modern invention, that amongst the 
thousands who thronged the halls of that great univer- 
sity were many highborn dames, some of whom became 
professors of Greek, Mathematics and even Anatomy; 
and that one lovely lady, Novella D'Andrea by name, 
lectured on the law; but from that tender regard for 
the susceptibility of the youths before her which has 
ever distinguished her sex, she delivered her lectures 
from behind a curtain. Your Society that glories in 
the name of "Lovers of the Beautiful" in justice to the 
fame of the fair lecturer, should endeavor to ascertain 
whether this was not really the origin of the somewhat 
famous "curtain lectures" of modern days, which were 
so conscientiously addressed to the obdurate and un- 
grateful Caudle. 

This responsibility for the further diffusion of educa- 
tion does not rest alone upon the patron or the pre- 
ceptor. It equally belongs to the Student; and no words 
of self-depreciation can dwarf him below the stature of 
accountability for the happiness and progress of his own 



28 



times. Jean Ingelow's words addressed by the preacher 
to the fishermen who pleaded their insignificance in 
exemption for neglected duty, equally apply to all Avho 
would take refuge in that defence from just censure. 

"The day was I have been afraid of pride, 
Hard man's hard pride; but now I am afraid 
Of man's humility. I counsel you 
By the Great God's great humbleness and by 

His pity, be not It amble oar much." 

As a good army cannot exist without good soldiers, 
so there cannot be a successful college without credita- 
ble students. I confess I should prefer an army of 
lions with a stag for a leader to an army of stags with a 
lion for a leader — Alexander the Great to the contrary. 
Under the mild system of discipline of the present day, 
it is simply impossible for professors to produce proper 
results, without the active aid and efficient sympathy of 
those they arc to instruct. The homely saying, "one 
man may lead a horse to water but ten men can't make 
him drink," states the whole case fully. 

The student's duty to endeavor to raise the fame of his 
college by achieving distinction in his studies is too ob- 
vious to need enforcement; and its discussion would cer- 
tainly be superfluous here, where you and your brethren, 
under the tutelage of your excellent instructors, have 
given such conspicuous proof of the industry, acquire- 
ments and ability of the students of Saint John's. In- 
deed the lamentable waste of opportunities which so 
often haunts one through after life as he beholds his in- 
feriors in ability and advantages pass him on the road to 



29 



success, is generally the result of thoughtlessness, 
rather than of design; of the neglect to pause from time 
to time and inquire what our present business is, and 
to reassure ourselves that it is really business and not 
trifling. For it cannot often be that college youths pre- 
meditate the waste of time, never to be recalled, and the 
consequent worse than waste of money — how often eked 
out by what denials and self-imposed privations on the 
part of the loving parent at home, who thinks no per- 
sonal sacrifice too great for the beloved son! 
With the hope that you may 

' ' better reck the rede 
Than ever did th' adviser," 

I will ask your leave to suggest to you a few points 
of infinite importance to the success of the student in 
his race for distinction in the college. They apply, I 
think, to the most common besetting faults that impede 
the advance of the greater number of scholars, and 
most men will agree in regrets that they had not re- 
alized them in their own college days. 

One valuable precept for the student is resolutely to 
avoid all waste of time. Not that he should be always 
at work, for healthful recreation is as much a duty as 
study, and the college authorities should see that it is not 
neglected. It was gratifying to observe the recognition 
of this duty by the authorities at Harrow-on-the-Hill, in 
the notices posted about the buildings "compulsory foot- 
ball for all classes at 12 o'clock to-day." The sound mind 
dwells only in the sound body, and the laws of health 



30 



take swift revenge of disobedience to their requirements. 
But the observant mind which is ever on the alert to 
receive impressions, will each day add to its treasures 
without serious effort and sometimes by methods which 
the ignorant may consider foolish. You may remember 
the story of James Watt, then a thoughtful observant 
boy, who had spent an hour in the kitchen holding a 
spoon in different positions before the steam issuing from 
the spout of a tea-kettle. Such apparent trifling roused 
the ire of his stern Aunt, who exclaimed with indigna- 
tion, "James Watt, you are the idlest boy I ever saw; 
you have spoilt this whole morning playing with that 
spoon; why don't you put it down and study a book!" 
Fortunately for the world this explosion did not destroy 
the plans of the steam-engine which Watt was already 
beginning to mature. 

Let the student resolve, as a cardinal principle, to do 
his best on all occasions. He need not fear to do too 
well or to exhaust his stores by too prodigal a use. 
The manna for the mind will be always renewed, but 
the old supply must be used and not stored to waste. 
Whatever is worth doiii" - at all is worth doino 1 as well 
as you can do it. If the fountain is really a good one it 
will soon fill again; and the practice of always calling 
your best faculties into use, will strengthen them for yet 
greater emergencies. The requirements of the present 
are certain and must be met now; the demands of the 
future are more doubtful and we may better trust 
to the resources we may then command, than slight 



31 



our present work by an unwise economy of the means 
in our possession. 

Avoid that spirit of discontent with your lot which is 
engendered so often by the dreams of the castle builder. 
"Chateaux en Espagne" are as expensive and hurtful 
to the mind as the veritable articles in stone and 
mortar would be useless and exhausting to the purse. 
It is idle to sigh for other worlds or flatter ourselves 
that we could do better if we were placed elsewhere, or 
pursued different studies. Had we lived in other 
times, we would have stoned the Prophets as they 
did; and to the indolent a change of location is but 
a change of skies, and a change of studies but the 
substitution of one neglected book for another. The 
matter with which we have to deal is here, face to 
face before vs, and we must encounter it now, as best we 
may. The stoic Epictctus, when enforcing the duties of 
life by illustrations from the scenes of the theatre uses 
these apt words: 

" Remember so to act your part upon the stage as to 
" be approved by the master, whether it be a short or a 
"long one that he has given you to perforin. If he 
"will have you to represent a beggar, endeavor to act 
" that well. So if a lame man, a prince or a plebian. 
"It is your part to perform well what you represent. 
"It is his to choose what that shall be." 

Happy the youth who feels the necessity for ivorlc. 
There are few young men in this country who can with- 
stand the enervating prospect of great wealth. We have 



32 



no race of reputable idlers among us, for a man without 
other occupation than amusing- himself is decidedly a 
fish out of water here. Almost all who attain official 
position or wealth in this country achieve it without the 
adventitious aid of fortune. And so generally is it true 
that the most responsible positions like the finest houses 
in almost every street of every town are held by those 
who began life poor, that parents who only covet politi- 
cal or pecuniary success for their children may well 
hesitate to hamper their energies by the load with which 
rich legacies so often weigh them down in the race for 
preferment. 

The student of Saint John's should cherish a just 
pride in his Alma Mater. It is the practice of weak 
minds to depreciate that with which they are familiar 
and glorify the merits of what is for removed. "Omne 
ignotum pro magnified" is the logic of the inexperi- 
enced. Few colleges surpass this in beauty of loca- 
tion, in fitness of some of its buildings or in the 
proportion of men of usefulness and distinction among 
its graduates. The visitor who expects always to find 
grandeur and magnificence among the Universities and 
Colleges of the old world will frequently be disappointed. 
But he will never fail to find a just pride in the institu- 
tions, cherished as a duty and a pleasure by the students; 
and this goes far to explain their success. The buildings 
at Harrow, with the exception of the modern chapel 
and library, are far inferior to these; but the students 
evidently love the old place and are proud to be 



33 



connected with it and cherish its traditions as their own 
honors. On every hand one sees mementoes of the col- 
lege days of former Harrovians; of Sir William Jones 
and Sheridan and Byron and Peel and Palmerston. 
The exercise books of Lord Aberdeen, not particularly 
creditable as Specimens of chirography, with letters from 
distinguished personages acknowledging civilities from 
the students, are carefully preserved in the Library. 
The old tomb, on which Byron was wont to lie stretched 
in the shade of a mighty oak, is carefully guarded 
by iron bars from the interference of relic gatherers. 
The old wainscoted walls of the College Hall are covered 
with distinguished names, carved there in youthful days 
by those who afterwards inscribed them with equal dis- 
tinctness in their country's history. Portraits of former 
students abound, and — especially prized by the younger 
generation — the fine face of Sidney Herbert, the youth- 
ful Secretary of War during the Crimean conflict — 
whose brilliant administration recalled the days when 
the younger Pitt was Prime Minister at twenty- five, and 
whose premature death moved the heart of the nation — 
looks encouragement from the walls upon the youth of 
England. These and similar proofs of love of the Col- 
lege, collected in great part by the classes themselves, 
are pointed out with interest to the visitor by the polite 
student. It is in the same affectionate and grateful 
spirit that the Venetians preserve and feed at the public 
expense in the Piazza of St. Mark the flocks of pigeons, 
offspring of the doves of good omen that brought 
5 



34 



tidings of glorious victory from blind old Danclalo in the 
greater days of the Republic. And thus it is that the 
students abroad seem to consider themselves the guar- 
dians of the College property. Students in this country 
would doubtless consider it a most arbitrary proceed- 
ing to exact from them such pledges as are incorporated 
in the rules of the Library of Trinity College, Dublin, 
to be subscribed by every student ; one of which I will 
read from the printed regulations handed to the visitor 
in the College Library: 

"Declaration Subscribed by Headers. — I, A. B., do solemn- 
ity promise, in the presence of God, that whenever I shall 
"enter the Library of this College, I will handle the books 
"and other furniture of the Library in such a manner, that 
"they may last as long as possible. I promise also that I 
"will not myself carry away any book, willingly injure one, 
" write in one, or in any way abuse one, nor will I so far as 
"in me lies, permit others to do so. Moreover, I will com- 
" municate to the Provost or Librarian the names of those 
"who commit such offences, within three days after I shall 
"know of them. All and each of which things, and all the 
"Statutes of the Library, so far as they relate to" me, I pro- 
"mise and pledge myself to observe faithfully. — Stat. 8 Geo. 
"IL, and 18 Vict." 

Yet it is by such discipline that the good are enabled 
to control the evil minded who would bring odium upon 
their fellows. It seems hard, that in the enforced asso- 
ciation of a College, the rule "noscitur ex sociis," should 
be so applied by the outer world of patrons, as to be- 
stow upon the exemplary some portion of the oppro- 
brium that ought to rest upon the wrong doer alone : and 
yet such is undoubtedly the fact. But judicious re- 
straints, in great part self-imposed by the student him- 



35 



self, may tend to curb such as require control, while 
they are practically unfelt by those who have no dis- 
position to transgress. The grounds, the buildings, the 
books and apparatus of a College arc rather designed 
for the benefit and delight of the student than of the 
citizen or professor; and it seems reasonable that the 
student should be as watchful to prevent the injury of 
his temporary home as the citizen is to guard his own 
humbler possessions. 

Why should you not inaugurate such a system here? 
The existence of your admirable College Societies, 
(organizations entirely unknown in Colleges out of this 
country in most of their peculiar features, so far as I have 
been able to ascertain,) furnishes an admirable machinery 
for its accomplishment, There would be more glory in 
originating the enterprise, than in lounging into the 
feast laid by others ; in establishing the orchard, than in 
indolently plucking the fruit from trees already planted. 

You do not lack the materials. If Harrow sent forth 
Statesmen who ruled their country with distinction, 
Judges and lawyers who dignified the administration 
of justice, Divines who illustrated the graces of Chris- 
tianity in their lives, and Scholars and Poets who have 
instructed and delighted the w T orld, Saint John's can 
claim the same high distinction. Holy and learned Bish- 
ops and Clergy; Scholars unsurpassed in their time for 
abstruse scientific learning; Chief Justices, Chancellors 
and Judges, the peers of the greatest Jurists in the land ; 
Statesmen who have proved themselves able to cope with 



36 



the first minds of their day at home and abroad, and 
whose services have thrice paid back to Maryland all that 
the College ever cost her; Lawyers who met only their 
equals when they encountered the legal giants of the 
land, — and who never forgot Jerusalem in her troubles 
but pleaded the rights of their Alma Mater whenever they 
were imperilled, with unsurpassed ability: — Philanthro- 
pists who turned their backs on prosperity and ease for 
the welfare of a benighted people, and perished for their 
sake, as truly as ever did pious palmer, who "wore his 
sandal-shoon and scallop-shell" — such are the sons whose 
fame is committed to you to preserve, of those who once 
sat where you now sit, and went in and out at these doors. 
The Star Spangled Banner of your own Key has done 
more to stir the blood and rouse the spirit of a free 
people, than all that Byron ever wrote; and every son 
of Saint John's may especially be proud that the same 
pure poetic spirit that struck those high chords in honor 
of his loved country, has also sung the glories of "a bet- 
ter country, that is, a Heavenly," in words that breathe 
so much of the Holy fervor and Divine grace that in- 
spired the Sweet Singer of Israel. Why should you 
not at once take measures to preserve mementoes of 
such men, before it shall be too late for success] 

And as the student should cherish a pride in his Col- 
lege, see to it that your College have cause to be proud 
of you. 

The highest responsibility of the student is for the 
formation of his own character. If he that ruleth his 



*?7 



spirit is better than he that taketh a city, is not the 
youth who, allured by the bribes of pleasure, recklessly 
sacrifices his opportunities for good, worse than the 
venal soldier who surrenders a fortress intrusted to 
him by the Master] as Tarpeia betrayed the Capitol to 
her country's foes. And ever the wages of the treason 
proves the destruction of the traitor; for the stipulated 
price is never paid: as the shameless Roman woman, 
who had demanded as the price of the citadel the 
shining things the Sabines wore on their left arms, fell 
crushed beneath the weight of their bright shields, 
which they pretended they had promised her instead of 
their golden bracelets. 

The path up the mountain side is arduous, and one 
false step may lose us all we have gained. From good 
to evil the distance is but small. The Faust of the 
poet Lcssing interrogates in turn the seven Spirits of 
Hell, that he may choose the swiftest as his familiar. 
Each claims the pre-eminence, which awakens his aston- 
ishment that among seven devils there should be only 
six liars. He rejects him who can fly as swiftly as the 
finger moves unburnt through the lamp flame, and those, 
in turn, who proclaim that they are as swift as the 
plague dart, — as the wind, — as the lightning, — as the 
thanks of grateful men, — as the wrath of the avenger; 
but he accepts at once, as far fleeter than all, that Spirit 
who declares that he is "neither faster nor slower than 
the passing from good to evil." "Alas," cries the doomed 
man, "I know how fast that is, I have proved it." 



38 



Would that the evil things of life were half as dif- 
ficult to acquire as the good! The youth who would 
attain the good must recognize the need of self-denial 
and stern repression of tastes and habits that lead to in- 
dolence and vice. The artful guardians of the youth- 
ful Eastern King, who wished to enervate and ruin the 
character whose incipient genius excited their fears, 
studiously planned to undermine his health and princi- 
ples by surrounding him with incentives to luxury and 
dissipation. And the youth of to-day who makes choice 
of the path of pleasure, is simply selecting for himself 
the very course which the most diabolical enemy he 
could possibly have would deliberately contrive for him. 

The Capua of the youthful student is " The Castle of 

Indolence." 

" For not on downy plumes," says Dante, 

"Nor under shade 
Of canopy reposing, Fame is won ; 
Without which whosoe'er consumes his days, 
Leaveth such vestige of himself on earth, 
As smoke in air, or foam upon the wave. 
Thou, therefore, rise! vanquish thy weariness 
By the mind's effort ; in each struggle formed 
To vanquish, if she suffer not the weight 
Of her corporeal frame to crush her down." 

The old servitor in Shakespeare, when offering his 
small savings and his bodily services to his ruined mas- 
ter, utters words which may well "give pause" to the 
ambitious youth. 

"Though 1 look old, yet am I strong and lusty ; 
For in my youth I never did apply 
Hot and rebellious liquors to my blood ; 
Nor did not with unbashful forehead woo 



39 

The means of weakness and debility; 
Therefore my age is as a lusty winter, 
Frosty, but kindly." 

And to energy of character and purity of life are 

well joined those graces of manner which spring from 

true unselfishness — the willingness to inconvenience 

ourselves for the sake of others: and that high sense 

of honor which Barns so finely expresses in his familiar 

lines ; 

" The fear o' hell 's a hangman's whip 

To baud the wretch in order ; 

But where you feel your honor grip 

Let that ay be your border. 

Its slightest touches^ instant pause — 

Debar a' side pretences ; 

And resolutely keep its laws 

Uncaring consequences." 

And happily you know, Young Gentlemen, that all 
this is but imperfect, unless there be yet added those 
higher attainments which are essential to make up the 
full stature of the Christian gentleman. 

The youth of our land will soon be its rulers. It 
were a glorious vision, says Disraeli, to see a land 
saved by its youth. Let the students of Saint John's 
resolve that their contribution to the stream of progress 
shall not contaminate its waters, if it cannot clear them. 

There could be no higher blessing for the country than 
that the new generation shall surpass the present in all 
that makes for good ; that its Clergy may preach the 
Faith with a yet holier zeal and with eloquent tongues 
as though touched with a living coal from off the altar; 
that its Judges with unsullied hands may administer a 



40 



yet wiser and purer law, whose steady light shall dazzle 

the audacious gaze of the extortioner and the public 

robber and drive him in dismay from the sanctuary he 

pollutes by his presence, 

"Blinded like serpents., when they gaze 
Upon the emerald's virgin blaze; — 

that the politician, with his crafty wiles and double 
promises, may give place to the Statesman, as Words- 
worth pictured him in The Happy Warrior: 

— "Who, if he rise to station of command, 
Rises by open means ; and there will stand 
On honorable terms, or rise retire, 
And in himself possess his own desire; 
Who comprehends his trust, and to the same 
Keeps faithful with a singleness of aim; 
And therefore does not stoop, nor lie in wait 
For wealth, or honors, or for worldly state; 
Whom they must follow ; on whose head must fall, 
Like showers of manna, if they come at all ;" 

and that yet greater comforts and happiness in every 
condition of life, may give rise to still deeper feelings 
of gratitude to The Giver of all good. 

May the students of this College take prominent 
part in this noble work, that they may everywhere be 
recognized by their merits as sons of Saint John's, and 
as white robed ambassadors may bear abroad the fame 
of their Alma Mater. So that in future days, when your 
successors in these Halls shall see your names high in- 
scribed among those of the useful and eminent of the 
land, they may be incited to emulate your virtues; and 
as they read the proud record may exclaim, 

"FORSITAN ET NOSTRUM NOMEN MISCEBITTJR ISTIS!" 



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